I found Estee Lauder’s holiday collection at the counter last weekend. Like in Blue Dahlia, there are two “pinwheel” palettes, but this time, one is an eyeshadow quint and the other is a lip quint (each $42).

If we know anything about creative director (and world-famous makeup artist) Tom Pecheux, it’s that he loves color. The eyeshadow palette (Extravagant Gold) features a satin goldenrod, a lovely golden beige-silk, a frosty copper, a frosty warm toast, and a matte cool brown. This palette is definitely for the warm eyeshadow lover, but the texture and pigmentation are fantastic.

The lip palette (Extravagant) contains a peachy-beige-nude sheer sparkly shade, a red-brown with red sparkles, a sheer yellow with pink and gold sparkles, a fluorescent sheer coral with gold sparkles, and a creme blue-red. Only the last shade (center of the palette) really seems like a lipstick; the others seem more like glosses.There are two limited edition holiday nail polishes, Extravagant Night and Extravagant Pearl (each $18).

Extravagant Night is purple with rather large silver sparkles. Extravagant Pearl is a delicious, frosty, super-cool gold with tiny silver sparkles, and a kind of iridescence in sunlight.

There are two Pure Color lipsticks ($22): Extravagant Red and Extravagant Berry. I swatched each one next to its corresponding Pure Color Gloss ($20): Star Ruby and Extravagant Plum.

The glosses do have sparkle (as their names suggest). Star Ruby is a sheer strawberry with pink, blue, and gold sparkles; Extravagant Plum is plum with pink, blue, and copper sparkles.

I had heard with the lip palette that only the middle is a lipstick and the others are all glosses that you are meant to layer over the lipstick to get different looks. The eyeshadows are so pretty though, trying to resist

I think the Berry lipstick and gloss are lovely. The nail polishes appeal too. I’m not feeling it for the eyeshadow palette though, I just can’t pull off gold. I wish I’d picked up either of the Blue Dahlia palettes now.
x

For Christmas I received the eyeshadow palette and the lip palette and the Extravagant Berry lipstick and the Extravagant Plum lip gloss.

To answer the Qs above, the lip palette is mostly glosses. There’s a small lipstick in the middle and the rest are meant to be layered over it. Watch out though – these are very warm. The center lipstick came off as hot coral on me, and the glosses only tamed it a little.

The Berry is wonderful on my cool skin tone but warning, it is very bold. I usually go with something not so strong, so it’s better as an evening look for me. My HG from the collex is the Plum lip gloss. I didn’t know it was even made and it was a nice surprise from my MIL. LOVE this. It’s so perfect that I went out and bought a back up the day after Christmas!